


high in the catalogue

by Sarah T (SarahT)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-05
Updated: 2011-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahT/pseuds/Sarah%20T
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's never too late to have a happy childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	high in the catalogue

**Author's Note:**

> I have taken some liberties with Oxford geography. Thanks to the Spike for beta.

Suddenly, vaguely, remembering that he actually disliked people, especially crowds, Sherlock turned and staggered up the riverbank, away from Magdalen Bridge and its throng of early-morning revellers. The faint pink had crept over the grey stone of the college buildings; the dawn had come, as it always did. (Of course it had. Dawn, and spring, were natural phenomena, not even much to study there. Why did they require romanticizing as May Morning?) But the voice of the choir still echoed in his mind. Louder than the ridiculously cheerful splashing and shouting from the river, at least.

He was still dressed in the previous evening's white tie, he realized as one shoe squelched in mud. He'd been invited to one of the more select balls. Doubtless Mycroft's doing, although he wasn't sure how he'd managed it, as Mycroft had been overseas and incommunicado for seven weeks and three days now. (Mummy was worried _sick_. Sherlock wasn't.) He'd intended to refuse, disdainfully of course. He would've had no use for those kinds of people even if they'd known he existed. But somehow he hadn't got round to making the gesture in the theatrical way he would've liked, and then the evening of, someone had tipped his scout to lay out his clothing, and so he'd found himself in a high-ceilinged, crowded room with people he knew only from gossip.

There had been champagne, quite a lot of it, in fact. Sherlock had drunk more of it than he usually did, and somehow that had led to joining in the dancing. There had been pretty boys and—as usual at these kinds of affairs—rather more pretty girls, and, as they were all in various states of intoxication themselves, none of them seemed to care very much that they didn't know him. The room had taken on an agreeable spin, and he was willing to keep turning with it, from partner to partner. He'd got more than one hint about slipping off somewhere more quiet, but he clung to the equilibrium of the ballroom.

They'd poured out at dawn to hear the music, but of course the group had got dissolved in the crowd. Sherlock, remembering suddenly the impending peril of morris dancing, had decided not to wait and look for anyone—anyway, he doubted that particular fairy company would be inclined to acknowledge Sherlock Holmes's existence in the growing light of day. He headed up the river, which on any other day would have been full of punts, but today was quiet.

The air was mild, winding Sherlock with contentment and softening the impact of data on his senses. Everything was moist and blurred and bright. His steps felt effortless, as if, with a bit more speed, he might be buoyed up and mount the air, carried on by his momentum for kilometers. Looking across the river at the turreted buildings, their windows now gleaming with slashes of early sunlight, for just a moment he could almost believe all the old tosh. That this place, on this kind of day, was the still center of all that was gentle and good, and he, even he, could come to rest here.

He shook his head and laughed at himself. Then he rounded a bend in the river and stopped laughing.

Mycroft was sitting against a tree, eyes closed, one arm tucked behind his head. He was, astonishingly, in his shirt-sleeves. There was a picnic basket next to him.

"Mycroft," he said.

"As it happens, yes."

He'd lost at least a stone. There were lines on his face that Sherlock had never seen before.

Sherlock swallowed. "Does Mummy know you're here?"

"No." He opened his eyes. "I'm leaving again this evening. It would only have upset her."

It would have been hard to upset her more than she was now, but Sherlock kept that thought to himself. Mycroft had come to _him_. There was a swift and greedy clutch of feeling in his chest.

"Where have you _been_?"

Mycroft's eyes were grave and sad. "Somewhere I hope you'll never see."

It made Sherlock's question echo pettish and immature, made him want to be both more childish and less.

Easy choice. "You sound like a bad spy novel." He flung himself down, heedless of likely grass stains. His head came to rest on Mycroft's knee.

Mycroft traced one finger over the curve of his ear. "I see you enjoyed yourself last night."

He opened his mouth to deny it, then realized how pointless that was. He shifted tactics. "Did you like it when you were here?"

Oddly, he can't remember ever _discussing_ Oxford with Mycroft. Only resenting it. He'd only been ten when Mycroft had gone away, the first in a long series of leavings.

"Not at the time."

"At the _time_?"

Mycroft was gently untangling curls grown wild during the evening's festivities. "It's remarkable, how memories can improve by contrast with later eras."

"What, are you saying you're not enjoying the sacred _work_?"

"There is very little of the hallowed about it," Mycroft said, "and less every day." Then, more brightly, "I have Pimm's cups."

"Later," Sherlock murmured, eyes dropping shut as the night's activities caught up with him. They wouldn't be bothered; Mycroft would have made sure of it. "I'm comfortable here."

"Good," Mycroft said. "That's as it should be."

Sherlock considered objecting to being part of Mycroft's tedious plan to relive his youth, but decided it was much easier to live his own. He was asleep within five minutes, Mycroft's fingers still in his hair.


End file.
